Children's sex-stereotyped self-socialization through selective exposure to entertainment: Cross-cultural experiments in Germany, China, and the United States

Chinese, German, and U.S. American 4- to 6-year-old boys and girls were asked to select videos of children stories that they would most like to see. Choices were either between pairs of story videos presenting aggressive versus peaceful, nurturing content, with male or female sex of story protagonists held constant, or between pairs of videos featuring male versus female protagonists, with aggressive or peaceful story content held constant. Across countries/cultures, boys showed a strong preference for aggressive stories; girls for peaceful, nurturing ones. Again across countries/cultures, both sexes favored stories featuring protagonists of their own sex. However, the preference for same-sex story protagonists was particularly strong in American and Chinese girls. In comparison, American and Chinese boys showed only a moderate preference for male characters.